Pew Research – “Many Americans use social media to connect with one another, engage with news content, share information and entertain themselves. Explore the patterns and trends shaping the social media landscape. Which social media platforms are most common? YouTube and Facebook are the most-widely used online platforms. Half of U.S. adults say they use… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Social Media
Voted in America? This Site Doxed You
404 Media: “If you voted in the U.S. presidential election [November 5, 2024] in which Donald Trump won comfortably, or a previous election, a website powered by a right-wing group is probably doxing you. VoteRef makes it trivial for anyone to search the name, physical address, age, party affiliation, and whether someone voted that year… Continue Reading
For Teens Online, Conspiracy Theories Are Commonplace
News:iterary Project: News Literacy in America: A survey of teen information attitudes, habits and skills (2024). “American teens spend hours each day scrolling social media platforms, immersing themselves in an often-confusing stream of entertainment, ads, news, rumors and conspiracy theories. Young people need the knowledge, skills and habits of mind to assess the credibility and… Continue Reading
Twitter2Mastodon
witter2Mastodon. “Paste in a Twitter URL and convert it into a Mastodon post. It says something about using Postiz to post but you don’t have to. Just click the “Post on Mastodon” button, put in your server URL, and away you go.” [via Tara Calishain] Continue Reading
Perplexity will show live US election results despite AI accuracy warnings
Ars Technica: “On Friday, Perplexity launched an election information hub that relies on data from The Associated Press and Democracy Works to provide live updates and information about the 2024 US general election, which takes place on Tuesday, November 5. “Starting Tuesday, we’ll be offering live updates on elections using data from The Associated Press… Continue Reading
LLRX October 2024 Columns and Articles
Artificial Intelligence and Unconscious Bias Risk – Elizabeth Sweetland reviews: Meredith Broussard, More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech (MIT Press 2023). 248 Pages. Trump’s Election Lawyers Must Heed Their Ethical Duties – Attorneys Stephen Marcus and Bruce Kuhlik discuss the ethical responsibilities of lawyers in the context of predicted attempts… Continue Reading
Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record
Internet Archives Blogs: “In today’s digital landscape, corporate interests, shifting distribution models, and malicious cyber attacks are threatening public access to our shared cultural history. The rise of streaming platforms and temporary licensing agreements means that sound recordings, books, films, and other cultural artifacts that used to be owned in physical form, are now at… Continue Reading
Exploiting Meta’s Weaknesses, Deceptive Political Ads Thrived on Facebook and Instagram in Run-Up to Election
ProPublica: Reporting Highlights Deceptive Political Ads: Eight deceptive advertising networks have placed over 160,000 election and social issues ads across more than 340 Facebook pages in English and Spanish. Harmed Users: Some of the people who clicked on ads were unwittingly signed up for monthly credit card charges or lost health coverage, among other consequences.… Continue Reading
LinkedIn sued for tracking user health data
ALM Benefits Pro: “Business-focused social media platform LinkedIn has been slapped with three digital privacy class actions contending that it illegally intercepted users’ sensitive health care information to use in targeted advertising. All three cases, filed by Bursor & Fisher in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and the Santa Clara County… Continue Reading
Foreign Malign Election Meddling Persists but Struggles to Gain Traction
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD): “In September 2024, FDD published a report documenting Russian, Chinese, and Iranian influence operations targeting the 2024 U.S. elections. This follow-up report details the ongoing efforts of U.S. adversaries who seek to undermine voters’ confidence in the electoral process in the weeks leading up to the November election.… Continue Reading
Generative AI Will Increase Misinformation About Disinformation
LawFare – Speculation about disinformation by users and the media can generate harmful political effects, amplifying existing biases. “…AI is about to significantly increase uncertainty in disinformation research, in an already highly uncertain field. Disinformation operations will be harder to identify, harder to map out, and harder to attribute. People have a tendency to interpret… Continue Reading
Why millions of Americans avoid the news and what it means for the election
Nieman Lab: “We are seeing a huge divide between people who are interested in news and those who are not, and I suspect that this divide is intensifying…Benjamin Toff is one of the leading experts on the rise of news avoidance and one of the authors of this recent book on this issue, based on survey data… Continue Reading
